Working Paper
The financial inclusion agenda
Using a unique district-level panel dataset, we investigate the effect of banking system penetration on financial inclusion in Ghana. To purge potential endogeneity bias in the underlying relationship, we exploit a change in the policy environment of...
Blog
Making Finance the Servant not the Master
Tony Addison Today, there is much frustration with the financial sector. Society’s precious savings are not being put to the best of uses—investing...
Working Paper
Loan Processing Costs and Information Asymmetries-Implications for Financial Sector Development and Economic Growth
The paper presents a model in which credit-constrained firms might delay the adoption of new and more productive technologies because of the very high external financing costs they face. Our point of departure is that the efficiency of the banking...
Working Paper
Efficiency of Commercial Banks in Sub-Saharan Africa
Utilizing the stochastic frontier approach, this study conducts a comparative analysis of profit efficiency and cost inefficiency of commercial banks operating in 29 sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries by bank ownership (domestic bank, SSA foreign...
Blog
Time to rethink theory on the role of finance in development: The new structural financial economics framework
by
Justin Yifu Lin, Jiajun Xu, Zirong Yang, Yilin Zhang
April 2024
The primary role of finance is to serve the ‘real economy’¬—the part of the economy that produces goods and services. Yet in practice, the financial...
Blog
Domestic Resource Mobilization and Financial Development: Looking at the MDGs from a Different Angle?
by
George Mavrotas
January 2009
George Mavrotas While recent years have witnessed new interest in the finance–growth nexus, the relationship between domestic resource mobilization...
Working Paper
The Change of the Financial System and Developmental State in Korea
This study examines the role of institutions and their change related to the rapid economic development and the 1997 Korean financial crisis. In Korea, the government built a state-led financial system through the 1960s and 1970s and a specific...
Working Paper
Prudential Regulation of Banks in Less Developed Economies
Beginning with an empirical analysis of banking crises using a logit econometric model covering a sample of developed and developing countries between 1980-97, the paper suggests that crises are more likely in years of low growth and high real...
Working Paper
Financial Markets and Governments
A survey of the changing relationship between the market for political services and the market for financial services.
Working Paper
Savings By and For the Poor
The poor can and do save, but often use formal or informal instruments that have high risk, high cost, and limited functionality. This could lead to undersaving compared to a world without market or behavioural frictions. Undersaving can have...
Journal Article
Financial Liberalization and Banking Sector Efficiency in India
The Indian financial sector has undergone a significant structural transformation since the initiation of financial liberalization during 1990’s. It brought significant changes in the financial sector in general and banking in particular. While there...
Working Paper
The Determinants of Loan Contracts to Business Firms
This paper deals with loan contracting from a private bank in Vietnam. We focus on the main loan contract features that the bank uses in lending to business firms, namely loan maturity, collateral and loan interest rate. Based upon the simultaneous...
Working Paper
The New Basel Capital Accord and Developing Countries
This paper argues that, if implemented in its current form, the new Basel Capital Accord will adversely effect developing sovereigns, corporates and banks wishing to borrow in international markets. This impact will result from the major banks’...
Working Paper
Bank Lending to Emerging Markets
This paper has two aims. The first is to provide some explanation for the extraordinary collapse in cross-border bank lending to developing countries which has taken place since 1997. The second is to argue that it might be too simplistic to...
Journal Article
Income Risk, Coping Strategies, and Safety Nets
Poor rural and urban households in developing countries face substantial risks, which they handle with risk-management and risk-coping strategies, including self-insurance through savings and informal insurance mechanisms. Despite these mechanisms...
Journal Article
Prudential Regulation of Banks in Less Developed Economies
This article argues that developing countries face inherent obstacles in setting up efficient financial regulation, and building up a sound banking sector: the presence of multiple tasks and multiple principals, poor institutions, lack of economies...
Journal Article
How Fast Do Banks Adjust?
This paper deals with a dynamic adjustment process in which adjustment of a key variable input (labor) towards its desired level is modeled in a panel data context. The partial adjustment type model is extended to make the adjustment parameter both...
Working Paper
The European Investment Bank
The paper considers the experience of the European Investment Bank and addresses policy lessons for developing countries as they seek finance for development. The paper argues that the key lesson for developing countries is that the traditional role...
Book
Finance and the Real Economy
The present volume contains six papers on financial-policy issues and country experiences, presented at a joint ECLAC/UNU-WIDER/UNCTAD seminar held at ECLAC headquarters in Santiago, Chile, on 5-6 October 1992. In the first, Yilmaz Akyuz discusses...
Working Paper
The Structure and Performance of Ethiopia's Financial Sector in the Pre- and Post-Reform Period with a Special Focus on Banking
Since 1992 Ethiopia has been engaged in liberalizing its financial sector. The hallmark of the strategy is gradualism. The approach is not without problems especially from Bretton Woods Institutions that saw the reform as a sluggish process. This...
Working Paper
A look offshore: unpacking the routes of misinvoicing in international trade
We study whether misinvoicing in international trade is reflected in cross-border bank accounts as reported by offshore financial centres. We show that residents hold more offshore wealth when local misinvoicing practices thrive, especially for under...
Working Paper
Performance of Microfinance Institutions in Burkina Faso
This study tests the performance of microfinance institutions (MFIs) in Burkina Faso using indicators such as the sustainable interest rate and the subsidy dependence index. The results indicate that MFIs outreach performance remains very low...
Working Paper
Foreign Banks and Credit Volatility
Foreign bank presence has substantially increased in Latin America during the second half of the 1990s, which has prompted an intense debate on its banking and macroeconomic consequences. In this paper, we apply ARCH techniques to jointly estimate...
Journal Article
Reconstructing and Reforming the Financial System in Conflict and ‘Post-Conflict’ Economies
Reconstructing the financial system in countries affected by violent conflict is crucial to successful and broad-based recovery. Particularly important tasks include: currency reform, rebuilding (or creating) central banks, revitalising the banking...
Journal Article
The financial inclusion agenda
Using a unique district-level panel dataset, we investigate the effect of banking system penetration on financial inclusion in Ghana. To purge potential endogeneity bias in the underlying relationship, we exploit a change in the policy environment of...
Working Paper
Ownership Reform, Foreign Competition, and Efficiency of Chinese Commercial Banks
Since China joined the WTO in 2001, the pressure for bank reforms has mounted as China ought to fully open up its financial market to foreign competition by 2006. Efficiency is key for domestic banks to survive in a liberalised environment, but it...